BUS602: Marketing Management

Horizon Scanning involves finding and assessing potential trends, uncertainties, and wild cards to assist present-day decision making, innovation, and risk assessment. 

Henry Mintzberg* described the need for strategists to look ahead, beyond, across, behind, above, below, and around for perspective; so it is with Horizon Scanning research. Horizon Scanning research starts with the early identification of potential change through single observations of change; an insight. Researchers then look for more scan hits to further evidence their observations and to identify changing patterns for continuous intelligent reporting. 

Insights are raw, diary entries of new, possible, and probable change noticed by researchers. They are an indelible record of eclectic facts, ideas, fads, fashions, and epidemics that allow the fixation of an unrevised perception. They enable us to study events in their own context. Aggregating insights allows us to spot new patterns of what's growing, falling away, and remaining static. 

Change does not happen in a vacuum; there are cumulative signals as trends emerge and gather momentum or critical mass. Horizon Scanning aims to support identifying, and keeping track of, the most significant developments at each stage. 

Horizon Scanning is therefore a necessary prerequisite step to organizational strategic thinking, action planning, and policy-making to avoid narrow and shallow decision-making, continual re-work, missed opportunities, and potential shock.